Bennett challenges 'whanau first' rule

Critics say the fate of the Kahui twins - buried with whanau at Mangere - shows the family is not always the best place for abused children. Photo / Richard Robinson

Abused Maori children in state care will be monitored to see whether they do better with their own whanau or another family.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has asked Child Youth and Family to compare the progress of the 50 per cent of children placed with extended family and the 50 per cent placed elsewhere - normally with foster families or permanently with a new family - to see what works better.

The idea stems from her concern at the high re-abuse rate for Maori children and anecdotal evidence that some placements with extended family can do more harm than good.

Last year almost 1800 children were re-abused within six months, an average of five a day. Almost half of all abused children are Maori.

The Maori minister admitted the question was "hugely controversial". For 20 years New Zealand social work had been based on the philosophy that children should be kept with their blood relatives wherever possible.

"In my opinion it works when that extended whanau are taking full responsibility for that child.

"When it gets a bit blurred is when we know who it is that's doing [the abuse], when we're keeping them daily involved, and it all starts getting mixed."

Detective Sergeant Megan Goldie, the child abuse team manager for Waitakere police, echoed her local MP's concerns about the dangers of staying too close to parents accused of abuse.

"The family that the child is going to may be perfectly OK but they may not be able to keep the offending parents ... away from that child.

"You can't expect that child to talk at an interview about that parent if the parents are popping in every now and again and seeing the child."

Parents could also exert pressure on relatives in more subtle ways, such as persuading them to make an excuse and skip the child's X-ray appointment. "There's all sorts of undercurrents going on."

Child abuse specialist Dr Patrick Kelly said it was a hard call: foster care also had a patchy safety record and permanent placement was a huge step.

But he agreed it was common for an abused child to be sent to an aunt who turned out to be no better than the original mother - and the case was renotified.

"By then the child's been living in an abusive or neglectful environment for another year.

"Sometimes you can go through five or six cycles of that process before CYF is forced to concede that this entire extended family is dysfunctional.

"But by then this poor kid has been in that situation for four or five years.

"And then you can't find a permanent placement for them, because they're nine years old and having learning difficulties and they're not a nice shiny new baby any more."

Other experts say the answer is to look harder for the right relatives.

Children's Commissioner John Angus, a former social worker, would like to build on the good work of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, whose members care for thousands of children affected by abuse and neglect.

They cared for more children than the state and children stayed much longer than with foster families.

Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples said it was commonsense that sometimes an extended family could not help but often the wider iwi could.

"They're there - it's a question of finding them. The extended family can almost be tribal or sub-tribal, so that's where you've got to look."

But health researcher David Fergusson, one of the experts Paula Bennett has tapped for ideas, said the re-evaluation was well overdue.

"It is blatantly a false assumption to imply families are always capable of solving their problems. The system ... has probably emphasised the role of the family too much, relative to the role of professionals."

Family First spokesman Bob McCoskrie agreed: "We've operated on the basis that kids are always better off with their extended family. You've only got to look at the Kahui case to see that that's not always necessarily the case."

Barbara Harvey, a retired West Auckland midwife with 20 years' experience and the wife of Waitakere mayor Bob Harvey, was even more blunt.

"I think this whole concept of whanau is crap.

"Often the family is so dysfunctional, and has been for generations, that people put up their hand to take a child who are just totally unsuitable."

She knew a colleague who had just delivered a baby to a woman whose children had all been taken away from her. Her partner was serving a prison sentence for breaking one of the children's legs.

The newborn child had been taken from its mother and placed with a foster family but the mother now wanted her baby back.

"This tiny, vulnerable infant is going to be taken away from the people it's bonded with and put with somebody [from] the mother's family.

"Well, I think it's madness."